Enter: The Year of the Dragon – five filmmakers record the spectacular display
By Jonah Kessel 2012: The Year of the Dragon from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo. The plan was simple: to one-up ourselves. One year earlier friends and filmmakers Paul Morris, Kit Gillet and myself decided to make a short video documenting some of the fireworks in Beijing as China celebrated the Lunar New Year. In fact,...
Jonah Kessel captures unusual Chinese protests in Wukan for the NYT – with Canon 60D and 5D mkII
By Jonah Kessel Wukan Video Journal from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo. Using a fat Chinese man, a large backpack, a baseball cap and the hood from my sweatshirt, I attempted to hide myself. I was sandwiched in between the beefy man and a f-stop Satori backpack jammed with gear on the rear of his motorcycle....
Making a visually boring person interesting to watch – A 5DmkII video shot for the New York Times
By Jonah Kessel Word Crimes from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo. Murong Xuecun is one of the least boring people I have ever met. He is energetic. He is dynamic. He is impressively clever. And in the last year, he has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of censorship in China. However, he is...
CNN airs new show ‘The Next List’ with Dr. Sanjay Gupta – shot with Canon DSLRs
By Dan Chung CNN have been in touch to say that their latest show ‘The Next List’ with Dr. Sanjay Gupta launches today. It’s all about innovation and fittingly it’s all been shot on Canon DSLRs. Running at 2:00-2:30pm ET each Sunday, the programme will profile exceptional individuals. The first is cyber-illusionist Marco Tempest. Check...
Making my Virgin Media award nominated short ‘Saloon’ on a 5DmkII – and how to get music rights
By Tom Pietrasik SALOON from Tom Pietrasik on Vimeo. Before making Saloon – my first film – I had been aware of the potential of DSLRs to capture beautiful video, but uncertain of how exactly to approach this new medium. I’d been inspired to take things further by the work of Dan Chung, Philip Bloom...
Hollywood DP Shane Hurlbut launches his own DSLR rig range with Letus
By Dan Chung The past weekend Hollywood DP Shane Hurlbut ASC unveiled the new Master Cinema series of rigs which bear his name and are made by Letus. Shane has long been a proponent of using the smaller form factor of cameras like the 5D mkII to create cinema. His work features a lot of...
Aljazeera’s Ben Emery shoots hour long “Correspondent” documentary on a Canon 5DmkII
By Ben Emery I guess when we all started out in this industry as news cameramen or photographers we dreamed of the type of jobs we would be shooting; whether its covering the human tragedy in some war torn country or amazing stories in far away exotic lands. The unfortunate reality of the news industry...
Moonshine: Dreamworks artists after dark
By Alexis Wanneroy In my day job as an animator working at Dreamworks animation studios I find myself in the company of great artists every day. In the hallways I see amazing character designs, backgrounds and development art from our films. There are a gallery of artists working toward a common goal – the movies...
Just Because: Tricycle Calligraphy
By Jonah Kessel As a video journalist I’m frequently approached by people asking me to come film — whatever it is they have that’s going on. A Chinese rock band, a new brand or some really exciting business conference are the usual suspects. These people often think their event would be so fun to film,...
Phil Bloom reviews Mosaic Engineering’s upcoming VAF-5D2 Anti-aliasing filter for the 5DmkII
By Dan Chung DSLR video guru Phil Bloom has been lucky enough to get his hands on the new VAF-5D2 anti-aliasing filter which potentially solves one of the biggest image quality issues with the Canon 5DmkII. Aliasing creates the infamous moire pattern where false colour information is seen in an image and is caused by...
See the new trailer for Sundance winner Hell and Back again – and theatrical release dates
By Danfung Dennis It’s been a long and hard road, but after several years of work, my film HELL AND BACK AGAIN will be released in theaters starting on October 5th. As many of you know the project was entirely shot on the Canon 5DmkII and I’d especially like to thank the DSLR community especially...
Using Zacuto’s EVF as part of my Documentary Rig
By Duy Linh Tu I am currently shooting Close to Home, a feature-length documentary about HIV in the southern United States (www.closetohomefilm.com). As a part of the production process, we’ve been posting some behind-the-scenes stills online, and Dan Chung noticed that I was using the Zacuto EVF. So, here’s how the device works as...
